With the third highest incidence rate and second highest mortality rate in the world, South Africa is facing a tuberculosis (TB) problem of such magnitude that this disease has been declared a national health emergency. The rampant HIV co-epidemic plaguing this country has exacerbated the problem enormously. Although some improvements could be made in controlling TB through reform of existing control programs, it is widely acknowledged that a quantum leap in the quality of tools for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of TB will be required if there is to be any hope at all of eradicating this devastating disease. The recent advances in genomics and the molecular biosciences have created the opportunity for investigating the biology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the interaction of this organism with its human host at a level that was previously unimaginable. Its unique position as a high-burden, African country with a well established scientific, technical and medical infrastructure places a particular onus on South Africa to contribute significantly to global research efforts that are aimed at developing new tools for controlling TB.

The major objective of the CBTBR is to contribute to local and global research efforts that are aimed at developing new tools for controlling tuberculosis and to use the research as a vehicle for training a new generation of high-quality biomedical research scientists.

An integrated, multidisciplinary approach is being adopted for the research being undertaken within this CBTBR, which involves a combination of bacterial and human molecular genetics, molecular epidemiology, microbiology, immunology, biochemistry, genomics and bioinformatics. The research programme of the CBTBR spans a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from fundamental research aimed at better understanding the biology of the bacterium that enables it to avoid destruction in the host and spread rapidly within human populations, to the application of basic research findings in clinical TB research and management. Included in the latter is research aimed at the development of multidisciplinary approaches for understanding the epidemiology of the disease and identification of novel bacterial and host markers that will shorten the time taken to develop new diagnostic tools.